


First Heartbreak

by Heavenly_Pearl



Series: Mila and Her Loves [6]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Celebrity Crush, F/M, First Aid, First Love, Gay Victor Nikiforov, M/M, Minor Injuries, Pre-Canon, Quad Flip (Figure Skating), Rumors, Stealing, Training Camp, Unrequited Love, YOIRarePairWeek2021
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:35:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28669317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heavenly_Pearl/pseuds/Heavenly_Pearl
Summary: Attending Yakov Feltsman’s annual summer training camp for the first time, novice skater Mila has two goals: impress the legendary coach with her skating and meet her celebrity crush, the one and only Viktor Nikiforov – the man she was destined to one day marry.Funny, nobody ever informed Viktor of that fact.
Relationships: Christophe Giacometti/Victor Nikiforov, Mila Babicheva & Victor Nikiforov, Mila Babicheva/Victor Nikiforov
Series: Mila and Her Loves [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2093343
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8
Collections: YOI Rare Pair Week 2021





	First Heartbreak

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE BEFORE READING: This fic takes place pre-canon, around 2008 or so. Mila is ten and Viktor is nineteen, but before that scares you off, I assure you that it is completely one-sided crush on Mila’s part, and Viktor is gay, thus not interested in her like that at all.

Viktor Nikiforov was, without a doubt, the most handsome man Mila had ever laid eyes on.

No, handsome wasn’t the right word. He was more beautiful than he was handsome, even with his new shorter, more “mature” hairstyle. He had recently chopped off his trademark long silver locks in a move that had shocked his many, many fans, but even if Viktor were, god-forbid, to go completely bald, Mila was certain it would take nothing away from his ethereal beauty.

Dreamy-eyed, she watched as the reigning Russian men’s champion demonstrated a textbook triple flip. She was supposed to be studying his technique, but, admittedly, it was hard to concentrate when Viktor Nikiforov, in the flesh, was skating right in front of her…

“Mila? Mila?...Ludmila Danilovna!”

Mila jumped to attention, inwardly cringing at the use of her formal name. She hated being called Ludmila, absolutely detested it with every fiber of her being, but she knew better than to talk back to the legendary Yakov Feltsman. Everyone knew his annual summer training camp was an unofficial try-out for prospective new students. He didn’t take on many novices – some years, he didn’t accept any at all if none lived up to his nigh-impossible standards – so it was important to remain on his good side and make the best impression if she wanted to be one of the lucky ones.

“Yes, Coach?”

“Triple flip, since you’ve been watching Vitya so closely.”

Mila’s cheeks warmed as a couple of girls next to her snickered behind their gloved hands. Apparently, she had not been as discreet in her fascination as she had tried to be. Her eyes sought out Viktor, half-afraid to see his reaction, but to her relief, he had skated over to the boards, not even paying attention as he drank from his water bottle and chatted with another one of Yakov’s senior skaters who was helping out with the camp. Mila thought his name was either Georgi or Grigori – she hadn’t paid much attention to his introduction at the beginning of the lesson, too overwhelmed by Viktor’s glorious presence.

“Yes, sir!”

Shooting a glare at the giggling older girls, Mila skated away and began doing crossovers to build up speed for her flip.

She had only begun training the triple a few months beforehand, but it was already one of her better jumps, along with her favorite loop. This was the perfect opportunity to show off what she could do, and maybe even impress Coach Feltsman and Viktor in the process. Pushing her embarrassment aside, she turned her concentration to performing the jump as perfectly as possible. She entered the jump on an outside 3-turn, then reached back and tapped the ice with her free foot, launching herself into the air. She quickly pulled in her arms and legs and rotated three times, safely landing on the back outside edge of her opposite foot.

The other skaters in her group applauded her success, but Mila wasn’t finished yet. Making a last-minute decision, she reached back and tapped into the ice again to add a double toe-loop in combo. Her timing was off, however, and she wasn’t able to quite get the height she needed to complete the revolutions. She came down with her legs still tucked together, causing her to trip and fall hard to the ice.

Viktor, who was standing closest to where she fell, skated over. “Hey, are you alright?” he asked, holding out his hand to her.

Mila bit down on her bottom lip, her eyes welling with tears as she pushed herself to a sitting position. The fall hadn’t hurt that much, to be honest, but she couldn’t believe she had made such a stupid mistake in front of the best coach and the best skater in the country – no, probably the entire world! If only she hadn’t been so cocky and had done the solo flip like Coach Feltsman had asked…

“Yakov, I’m going to take her to first aid,” Viktor called out, the coach waving his hand dismissively in acknowledgment before ordering Georgi – that was his name! – to demonstrate a camel spin.

Before Mila even had the chance to protest, Viktor swept her up in his strong arms and skated over to the gate. Again, she felt her cheeks go flush, but she didn’t say anything until he had stepped off the ice.

“Um… I’m okay, really,” she said. “I’m not hurt or anything. I was just shocked by the fall.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded, and Viktor set her down on the padded floor, the two of them noticing the bloody cut on the palm of her left hand at the same time.

“You are injured! Here, let me see.”

She hid her hand behind her back. “No, it’s okay. It’s just a little scrape. It doesn’t even hurt.” If she couldn’t even handle a tiny cut like that, then she had no business even wanting to be an elite figure skater.

“Even ‘little’ scrapes need to be tended to properly,” Viktor said, grabbing his skate guards and slipping them over his blades after swiping off the excess ice with his fingers. “Which ones are yours?”

She pointed to the sparkly pink ones. Viktor handed them to her and waited for her to slip them on. He then offered his hand once again, Mila hesitating before shyly taking it with her uninjured hand and allowing him to lead her to the nearby infirmary.

There was no one on duty in the room when they arrived – the medic must have been called to the other rink where a hockey camp was taking place – so while Mila took a seat on one of the provided plastic chairs, Viktor rummaged around the cabinets for supplies. “ _Barbie_ or _Cars_?” he asked.

She blinked. “Huh?”

“Bandaids.” He held up two boxes of character-themed bandages. “Do you want a _Barbie_ one or _Cars_?”

“Um, _Cars_ , I guess?” She didn’t really have a preference.

“Are you sure? These _Barbie_ ones are kind of pretty. In fact…” He made a show of looking around the room, then fished a couple of the Barbie bandages out of the box and slipped them into the pocket of his sweat pants before bringing a finger to his lips. “This is our little secret, okay, uh…” He frowned. “Sorry, I’m terrible at remembering names. What’s yours, again?”

She might have been offended if she wasn’t so absolutely star-struck. She couldn’t believe she was actually having a conversation with THE Viktor Nikiforov. “I’m Mila – Mila Babicheva. DON’T call me Ludmila.”

“Okay, Mila-not-Ludmila.”

Mila giggled, and Viktor smiled, bringing over the box of _Cars_ bandaids, along with a tube of antibiotic ointment and a damp washcloth. He set the supplies except for the washcloth on a nearby counter, then pulled one of the other chairs in front of her and took a seat.

“Now that we’re partners-in-crime, let me see that cut,” he said for the second time, Mila finally holding out her injured hand. Viktor examined the cut as he gently wiped the blood away with the washcloth. “Oh, it’s not so bad. I’ve had a lot worse in my day.” When he finished cleaning the cut, he reached for the tube and began dabbing some ointment over it. “That was a really beautiful triple flip you did before the fall, by the way,” he said. “I’m impressed you went for the combo. Have you landed it before?”

“A few times,” she said proudly. “Once I even landed it with a triple toe, although my coach said it was too under-rotated to count. Is it really true you’ve been training a quadruple flip?” That was the rumor going around. She heard it from one of the senior girls, Yulia, who trained at her club, who in turn had heard it from her boyfriend, another one of Yakov’s pupils – maybe he was even that Georgi guy. Mila couldn’t recall his name off-hand.

Tearing the wrapping off one of the bandages, Viktor winked. “I can neither confirm or deny,” he said, sticking the Lightning McQueen-covered bandage over her cut. “You’ll just have to wait and see next season.”

Viktor did love his surprises. It was one of the things that Mila admired most about his skating – it was never safe or predictable. He was always seeking to improve himself, both technically and artistically. Still… “I bet you’ll be the first to ever land one.”

“We’ll see.” He stood back up and put the supplies back in their proper place. “Anyway, we better get back on the ice before Yakov gets mad.”

Reluctantly, Mila stood up as well and sighed, certain that she had blown whatever chance she had of catching Coach Feltsman’s eye with her mistake and insubordination. He had probably already scratched her name off his list of prospective new students.

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Viktor said, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Yakov’s tough, but he’s one of the best when it comes to recognizing true talent. I must have fallen at least a dozen times in front of him when I first came to this camp as a novice, yet he still saw something in me worth teaching. Actually, you remind me a lot of myself as a ten-year-old.”

“Really?”

“Except I had longer hair.” He took a strand of her short bob and playfully batted her nose with it, causing Mila to giggle once again. “Now, ready to get back on that ice and show everybody how it’s done?”

“Ready!”

* * *

The rest of the day went much better. Mila took Viktor’s advice and tried not to focus so much on impressing Coach Feltsman, concentrating more on the lessons themselves. After all, even if he didn’t choose her to become a permanent student, she could still take advantage of his expertise while she was at camp.

As luck would have it, she did manage to impress Coach Feltsman with her double axel. He praised her upon seeing her do one straight out of a spread eagle, a transition she copied straight from Viktor’s free program last season – although his had been a triple, of course. In fact, Coach Feltsman seemed to think Mila had the potential to do a triple axel herself in the future, which would be absolutely amazing if she could pull it off. There were only a few women in history who had landed a triple axel in competition, so to have one in her arsenal would be a huge advantage over her competitors.

She was still on Cloud 9, thinking of the compliment, when she exited the ladies’ locker room, having changed back into her street clothes. Everyone at the camp was staying at a nearby dormitory, but no one was allowed to leave on their own, so she leaned back against the wall and waited for the other girls to finish changing.

 _I wonder if Viktor’s already left._ She wanted to hear what he thought of her amazing double axel and maybe ask for some tips on landing the triple. The last Mila saw him, he had still been on the ice, practicing quad toes and salchows after being limited to demonstrating triples for most of the day. If she hurried, she might be able to catch him before the rest of the girls were ready to leave.

Decided, Mila jogged back to the rink, her skate bag rolling behind her.

She was quiet as she pushed open the door, not wanting to disturb Viktor if he was doing a run-through of one of his programs. He wasn’t, but he was still out on the ice, the only skater left. As Mila stepped inside, he fell on what appeared to be a quad flip attempt. _I knew it!_ Viktor _was_ secretly training the high-level quad.

She forgot about her initial reason for looking for Viktor, much more interested in watching him practice. He got back to his feet and began building up speed for another attempt, Mila unconsciously holding her breath as he tapped into the ice and vaulted into the air.

_One...two...three...four…_

He did it!

Even Viktor seemed shocked by what he had done. Coming to a stop, he spun back around, eyes wide and his mouth slack-jawed. “Did I just…?” Bewilderment quickly turned into jubilation, Viktor’s beautiful face breaking into a huge smile. “I did it!” he shouted, pounding his fists in the air. “Yes, I finally did it!”

The sound of someone clapping alerted Mila to the fact that she was not the only witness to the historic feat. Someone else was at the boards. His back was turned to her, but Mila knew it wasn’t Coach Feltsman. The man had a full head of hair, blond on top but with a dark undercut, and even slouched against the barrier, she could tell he was much taller than the coach, maybe even taller than Viktor.

“Chris!”

Hearing Viktor call his name, Mila finally placed him – Christophe Giacometti, an up-and-coming Swiss skater who was a couple of years younger than Viktor. A former junior World silver medalist, he had yet to win any major international medals on the senior level, but he had just missed making the podium at Europeans by the narrowest of margins – only a tenth of a point – and was known for his amazing spinning ability.

“ _C’est magnifique!_ ” Chris said, straightening his posture as Viktor skated over. “Congratulations! Looks like I’m going to have to work even harder on getting that quad lutz.”

Viktor grinned. “I’ll be looking forward to it, _m_ _on cher_.”

And then he leaned over the barrier and kissed Chris, full on the mouth.

Mila gasped.

They were...boyfriends? But Viktor… He was supposed to fall in love with _her_. Not right now, of course – that would be ridiculous! – but when she was older. She had their wedding all planned out in her head, her diary filled with lacy white dresses she had cut out of her cousin’s old bridal magazines and the name Mila Nikiforova scrawled over the lined pages in pink ink.

But if Viktor was with Chris, did that mean he liked guys? Viktor had never said anything publicly to Mila’s knowledge, although he hadn’t exactly hid it either, looking back in hindsight. She supposed she simply had refused to accept it, wanting to continue to believe that Viktor was destined to be her Prince Charming even when he was so obviously looking for one of his own.

Tears welled in her eyes. She was such an idiot! Turning back around, Mila pushed opened the doors and ran out of the rink, ignoring Viktor calling out her name.

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: “Yuri!! On Ice” doesn’t belong to me.
> 
> AUTHOR’S NOTES: I hope you enjoyed the story! This fic was written for the Yuri!!! On Ice Rare Pair Week, Day 7: Free Day, and thus ends my week of Mila romances.
> 
> Feel free to follow me on Tumblr! My username is kaleidodreams.


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